United States v. Coleman

• Decision Date: 08 June 2020
• Docket Number: No. 19-2068,19-2068
• Citation: 961 F.3d 1024
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff - Appellee v. Jevonne Martell COLEMAN, Defendant - Appellant
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

961 F.3d 1024

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff - Appellee

v.Jevonne Martell COLEMAN, Defendant - Appellant

No. 19-2068

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

Submitted: January 17, 2020

Filed: June 8, 2020

Rehearing and Rehearing En Banc Denied July 21, 2020

Timothy Vavricek, Assistant U.S. Attorney, U.S. Attorney's Office, Northern District of Iowa, Cedar Rapids, IA, for Plaintiff-Appellee.

Jevonne Martell Coleman, Dubuque, IA, Pro Se.

Diane Z. Helphrey, Assistant Federal Public Defender, Federal Public Defender's Office, Davenport, IA, for Defendant-Appellant.

Before KELLY, MELLOY, and KOBES, Circuit Judges.

KELLY, Circuit Judge.

Jevonne Coleman pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm under 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1) and 924(a)(2). The district court¹ accepted his plea and sentenced him to 108 months in prison. After sentencing, the Supreme Court decided that, to be convicted under § 922(g), the defendant must have known "he belonged to the relevant category of persons barred from possessing a firearm." Rehaif v. United States, ––– U.S. ––––, 139 S. Ct. 2191, 2200, 204 L.Ed.2d 594 (2019). This requires that Coleman knew he was a felon when he possessed the firearm in this case. Coleman now challenges the validity of his plea and conviction based on Rehaif. Because we find no basis for reversal, we affirm.

I.

On May 10, 2018, the grand jury indicted Coleman with one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm. See 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1), 924(a)(2). The indictment did not allege that Coleman knew he had a prior conviction punishable by more than one year in prison. Coleman subsequently filed a notice of intent to plead guilty. At the change-of-plea hearing, the magistrate judge explained that having been convicted of a crime punishable by more than one year in prison was an element of the offense. Coleman admitted that this element was established. However, Coleman was not told that knowing of his felon status at the time of possession was also an element of the offense, and he did not acknowledge that this element was satisfied. After Coleman pleaded guilty, the magistrate judge recommended that the district court accept Coleman's plea. No objections were filed, and the district court accepted the plea. The court later sentenced Coleman and entered a judgment of conviction on May 14, 2019.

On June 21, 2019, the Supreme Court decided Rehaif, which clarified the scope of § 922(g). This circuit had previously held that § 922(g)(1) required the government to prove three elements: "(1) previous conviction of a crime punishable by a term of imprisonment exceeding one year, (2) knowing possession of a firearm, and (3) the firearm was in or affecting interstate commerce." United States v. Montgomery, 701 F.3d 1218, 1221 (8th Cir. 2012). Rehaif held that the government must also prove a fourth element: that the defendant "knew he belonged to the relevant category of persons barred from possessing a firearm." Rehaif, 139 S. Ct. at 2200.

II.

On appeal, Coleman argues that Rehaif establishes two errors in his guilty plea. First, he contends that because he was not informed of the fourth essential element of a § 922(g) offense, his plea is constitutionally invalid. Second, he argues his plea violated Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11 because the district court did not inform him of the nature of the charge to which he was pleading under Rule 11(b)(1)(G) or determine that there was a factual basis for the plea under Rule 11(b)(3).

Coleman did not raise these arguments below so we review for plain error. See United States v. Jawher, 950 F.3d 576, 579 (8th Cir. 2020). Coleman must show (1) an error, (2) that is plain, and (3) that affects his substantial rights. United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 732, 113 S.Ct. 1770, 123 L.Ed.2d 508 (1993). We will exercise our discretion to correct such an error only if it "seriously affects the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings." Id. (cleaned up).

A.

Coleman satisfies the first two parts of the Olano plain-error test for both alleged errors. Although the Supreme Court decided Rehaif after Coleman's plea and conviction, its holding applies here because it clarified what § 922(g) "has meant continuously since the date when it became law." See Rivers v. Roadway Express, Inc., 511 U.S. 298, 313 n.12, 114 S.Ct. 1510, 128 L.Ed.2d 274 (1994). Therefore, Coleman's plea is constitutionally invalid because he did not understand the essential elements of the offense to which he pleaded guilty. In other words, his plea was neither knowing nor intelligent because he did not have "real notice of the true nature of the charge against him, the first and most universally recognized requirement of due process." See United States v. Ochoa-Gonzalez, 598 F.3d 1033, 1036–38 (8th Cir. 2010) (quoting Bousley v. United States, 523 U.S. 614, 618, 118 S.Ct. 1604, 140 L.Ed.2d 828 (1998) ). Coleman's plea also violated Rule 11 because the district court did not advise him of the knowledge-of-status element established by Rehaif and did not examine the record to determine whether there was a factual basis for finding such knowledge. See Fed. R. Crim. P. 11(b)(1)(G), (b)(3) ; Jawher, 950 F.3d at 579. Because we measure whether an error is plain based on the law at the time of appeal, both errors are now plain under Rehaif. See Jawher, 950 F.3d at 579.

B.

The government argues that Coleman does not satisfy the third part of plain-error review because he cannot show that either the constitutional error or the Rule 11 error affected his substantial rights. The Supreme Court has explained that, "in the ordinary case," an error affects the defendant's substantial rights if he or she demonstrates "a reasonable probability that, but for the error, the outcome of the proceeding would have been different." Molina-Martinez v. United States, ––– U.S. ––––, 136 S. Ct. 1338, 1343, 194 L.Ed.2d 444 (2016) (cleaned up). Coleman contends that he need not make this showing to gain relief for his constitutionally invalid plea. He asserts that this error "affects substantial rights as a per se matter" and thus constitutes structural error that requires automatic reversal. He concedes, however, that he must still satisfy the substantial-rights prong to gain relief for the Rule 11 error. See United States v. Dominguez Benitez, 542 U.S. 74, 83, 124 S.Ct. 2333, 159 L.Ed.2d 157 (2004).

Coleman relies on our decision in Ochoa-Gonzalez to argue that a constitutionally invalid plea requires reversal without determining its effect on his substantial rights. In Ochoa-Gonzalez, the defendant argued on direct appeal that her guilty plea was invalid in light of Flores-Figueroa v. United States, 556 U.S. 646, 129 S.Ct. 1886, 173 L.Ed.2d 853 (2009), which held that, to be convicted of aggravated identity theft, "the defendant must know that the identity stolen belongs to a real person." Ochoa-Gonzalez, 598 F.3d at 1036. Applying plain-error review, we examined Ochoa-Gonzalez's plea colloquy and decided it showed that (1) neither her counsel, nor the government, nor the district court understood that this additional essential element applied and (2) Ochoa-Gonzalez did not know the identity she had stolen "actually belonged to somebody else." Id. at 1037–38. Thus, we determined the district court had committed plain error by accepting her constitutionally invalid guilty plea. Id. at 1038. We also decided this error "affected her substantial rights as well as the fairness and integrity of the judicial proceedings," and reversed her conviction. Id.

Contrary to Coleman's argument, however, Ochoa-Gonzalez did not hold that the failure to advise the defendant of an essential element requires "per se reversal," even when that failure renders the plea unconstitutional. Rather, Ochoa-Gonzalez applied all four parts of plain-error review and found each was satisfied given the proceedings in the district court. Crucial to our holding was that Ochoa-Gonzalez's plea colloquy showed the additional element announced in Flores-Figueroa was not in fact satisfied in her case. She expressly told the district court that she did not know the passport number she had used "actually belonged to somebody else." Id. at 1037. There was thus "a reasonable probability that, but for the error, the outcome of the proceeding would have been different."² See Molina-Martinez, 136 S. Ct. at 1343.

Nevertheless, Coleman urges us to classify the constitutional error in this case as structural. The structural-error doctrine applies to a "narrow class of errors—defects ‘affecting the framework within which the trial proceeds, rather than simply an error in the trial process itself.’ " Becht v. United States, 403 F.3d 541, 547 (8th Cir. 2005) (quoting Neder v. United States, 527 U.S. 1, 8, 119 S.Ct. 1827, 144 L.Ed.2d 35 (1999) ). Structural errors "defy analysis by ‘harmless-error’ standards." Arizona v. Fulminante, 499 U.S. 279, 309, 111 S.Ct. 1246, 113 L.Ed.2d 302 (1991). The Supreme Court has indicated that there "may be a special category of forfeited errors that can be corrected regardless of their effect on the outcome." Olano, 507 U.S. at 735, 113 S.Ct. 1770. But we have explained "it is an open question" in this circuit "whether an unpreserved structural error automatically satisfies the third prong of the plain-error test." United States v. Picardi, 739 F.3d 1118, 1123 n.3 (8th Cir. 2014) (citing Puckett v. United States, 556 U.S. 129, 140–41, 129 S.Ct. 1423, 173 L.Ed.2d 266 (2009) ). For purposes of this case, however, we will assume without deciding that Coleman would satisfy the third part of plain-error review if he could demonstrate that his constitutionally invalid plea is structural error.

The Supreme Court has found structural error "only in a very limited class of cases." Neder, 527 U.S. at 8, 119 S.Ct. 1827 (cleaned up). Neither the Supreme Court nor this court has ever identified a constitutionally...